"Feser... has the rare and enviable gift of making philosophical argument compulsively readable" Sir Anthony Kenny, Times Literary Supplement

Selected for the First Things list of the 50 Best Blogs of 2010 (November 19, 2010)

Friday, October 14, 2011

Weekend reading

A few articles worthy of your attention: R. J. Stove, conservative writer and son of the late conservative atheist philosopher David Stove, writes movingly of his parents and of his conversion to Catholicism.

Perhaps the harshest reaction comes from [Daniel] Dennett, an influential U.S. philosopher whose books square human life with science. He sympathizes with Tallis's concerns. But what every philosopher should know is that any philosopher—Plato, Hume, Kant, take your pick—"can be made to look like a flaming idiot if you oversimplify and caricature them," Dennett tells me.

"Tallis indulges in refutation by caricature," says Dennett, a professor of philosophy and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. "He's not taking his opponents seriously. He's sneering instead of arguing. He's ignoring the complexities of the arguments. So he's not really doing philosophy. He's doing propaganda."

Why, one would almost think Dennett was talking about the author of Breaking the Spell -- who, as someone once showed, has nothing to offer in the way of criticism of the philosophical arguments for theism except oversimplification and caricature.

This sort of hypocritical whining is nothing new from Dennett. He may just be the most self-unaware human being on the planet.

I'm currently reading Tallis' new book, and these remarks from Dennett cannot be further from the truth. It's obvious from the first chapter that Tallis intends to give the subject a fair hearing.

Interestingly, early on he refers to neuroscience as the "queen of the natural sciences", which agree or disagree, shows his admiration for the subject matter (I mean, he IS a neuroscientist, so who better to examine the field's current standing?).

Also, just picked up 'The Last Superstition' which I've been thoroughly enjoying!

I've read Oderberg's article some days ago. It is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It cleared away many misconceptions i had about metaphysics and presented important concept that were not in his book. Very highly recommended.

Just read RJ Stove's conversion.It sounds like even David Stove was considering a conversion of some sort. Shame he committed suicide. I have no idea what it is like to suffer through what he had to with what happened to his wife. Prayer for God's mercy on Dr. Stove tonight!!

Having heard of Bartels and Zeki's work I was rather interested in what the research said (rather then what Tallis claims they said).

After reading their report "The neural basis of romantic love" the only bit I can gather is that Tallis read about their research in the NY Times (or some other rag) then actually reading their research.

Specifically:"The combination of these sites differs from those in previousstudies of emotion, suggesting that a unique network of areas is responsible for evoking this affective state. This leads us topostulate that the principle of functional specialization in thecortex applies to affective states as well."

and

"Given the uniqueness of the pattern of activity evoked, it is not unreasonable to suppose that other unique emotional states will correlate with activity in other functionally specialized subsystems of the brain."

About Me

I am a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles. I teach philosophy at Pasadena City College. My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.